Archive for February, 2013

Today, we introduce CS-Cart 3.0.6 – a maintenance release with several important improvements and bug fixes:

PayPal processing security has been improved

A serious bug in the SEO add-on in the Ultimate edition has been fixed

USPS shipping integration has been updated to fit the latest service changes

Since the mentioned features are very popular among CS-Cart users, we decided to put thеse patches together and publish them as a separate release.

This release is available in both international and Russian builds.

The patches for the PayPal and USPS issues are also available for earlier CS-Cart versions. Registered users can download them from the File area (in the Updates section) in their Customer Help Desk accounts.

Upgrade

An upgrade can be performed via the Upgrade Center in the CS-Cart admin panel (Administration → Upgrade Center). For instructions, follow the guide in our Knowledge Base or the video tutorial.

Since this version is similar to the previous one, upgrading from CS-Cart 3.0.5 should go quickly and smoothly, without causing any file conflicts.

The number of upgrade package downloads is limited within the first few days to avoid server overload. If you do not see the upgrade available in your CS-Cart admin panel, just wait. The upgrade should be available for all CS-Cart store owners in the course of a week.

CS-Cart 3.1.1 is on its way, ready to deliver a pack of great new features.

One of these features is the API. It is a long-awaited feature, and we are very proud to be able to announce it.

In this article, I will briefly tell you about some key points of CS-Cart API.

What is CS-Cart API

Basically, API is an interface used for app-to-app communication. Using API, one application can access and modify the data of another application. One of the most commonly used API paradigms is REST, which will be used in CS-Cart as well.

With the help of CS-Cart API, it will be possible to view and edit a store’s data by sending standard HTTP requests to it (over a secure channel, if necessary), with no need to open the CS-Cart admin panel or the storefront in a browser.

Features

The objects that can be managed remotely via the API in CS-Cart 3.1.1 are:

Products

Categories

Users

Settings

Such an object can be viewed, created, or removed, and its properties can be modified individually.

With the help of the API, a third party developer can write applications to communicate with a CS-Cart store quickly and easily.

Security

Users must be explicitly granted API access in the profile settings via the CS-Cart admin panel in order to use it. A unique security key will be generated, which will serve as the access password when sending API requests:

Regular user permissions are applied as well, and only a user with sufficient privileges will be able make changes in the store database.

This is just a brief overview of our new API. The full developer guide will be published later on our site. Stay tuned!

API will be one of the greatest features of CS-Cart, and we are looking forward to people using it. We are happy to answer any questions you may have in the comments section.